Customer Reviews

Flying Teapot

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Gong's first release for Virgin Records was released in 1973 and marks Pt. I of Daevid Allen's masterwork, the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy. The other albums in the trilogy include Pt. II Angels Egg (1973), and my personal favorite, Pt. III You (1974). Sadly, Daevid Allen left Gong after the You album, taking his hilarious and seemingly magical world of protagonist Zero the Hero, Pot head pixies, octave doctors, crystal machines, and the like with him.

The six tracks on this great album range in length from 1'51" to 11'52" and feature an excellent blend of synth heavy space rock, space whispers, really silly (and fun) absurdist humor, prog rock rave-ups, jazz rock, and all around excellent individual and ensemble playing. Speaking of which, although this lineup is not the classic Gong lineup featured on Angels Egg and You, all of the band members are excellent and a few of the elements that made those later albums incredible are in place. Specifically, newly acquired guitarist extraordinaire Steve Hillage and synthesizer player Tim Blake had signed on. In fact, Tim Blake's spacey VCS3 and mini moog synthesizer work really makes this album work for me and he is highlighted on the short synth piece The Octave Doctors and the Crystal Machine. In addition to bandleader Daevid Allen (guitars, vocals) and space whisperer/Welsh poet Gilli Smyth, former Magma bassist Fancis Moze, Didier Maherlbe (saxophone, flute), and excellent drummer Laurie Allen played on this album.

OK, now for the bad stuff. Although the music on this album is incredible, the 2005 remastering effort by Charly is simply atrocious and it appears that Flying Teapot may have in fact been remastered in a back alley. The cover art is "pixelly" and grainy and it appears that the cover art may have been simply scanned from "Joe's copy" and then edited by someone who did not have a clue as to what they were doing. Even the inner photos appear to have been scanned and are also grainy and "pixelly". In fact, one of the images appears to have been borrowed from the remastered version of Angel's Egg issued by EMI. The sound quality is also terrible, and has all of the texture and dynamic range you might expect from a beat up cassette tape (made in 1973) being played on a cheap, portable tape recorder at a distance of 300 meters. Specifically, the overall sound is low and muffled, and there are points where there is severe distortion.

I will not however, let the clowns over at Charly ruin this fantastic album for me and I will still give this album a five star rating in spite of it all. For those of you that are not as forgiving and cannot overlook these problems, I would strongly urge you to look around and track down another version.

All in all, this album is highly recommended along with Camembert Electrique (1971), Angel's Egg (1973), and You (1974). Just avoid any of the lousy versions issued by Charly.

Strong statement to start a review I know, but here are the reasons. Both Daevid and George held large groups of disparate and talented musicians together for several years, gave them alternative names, and got them to buy into their own unique vision of the world. Both visions included fictitous characters acting out complex plots using a unique language and imagery. Both created music that broke down barriers between established musical forms and molded the pieces into something new and undefinable. Both are very funny men (in more ways than one you could say).

Flying Teapot is part one of the Radio Gnome trilogy of albums (Angel's Egg and You are the others).This is the album that introduces us to Zero the Hero and the Pothead Pixies and includes stories of inner/outer space travel in flying teapots and encounters with wicked witches. With only a handful of very long tracks you need to sit down and get involved for the first couple of runs through, but after a while Steve Hillage's guitar and Blomdido Bad de Grasse's sax will hook you into the hypnotic mantras of "Zero the Hero", "The Pothead Pixies" and "Flying Teapot". After that all resistance will be futile and you'll find yourself chanting "I am, you are, we are crazy" along with everyone else. There are only a couple of weaknesses with the whole thing, but of the trilogy, this is the most straight ahead and rock based. Start here and work through Angel's Egg in to You. It could change the way you look at, well, everything really.

This is the start of the "Radio Gnome Trilogy" in which Daevid Allen and Gong lay out the full mythology of the Planet Gong and the Pothead Pixies. Calling this "jazz-rock" is completely misleading though it certainly has elements of both. It is the first fully formed expression of the unique sound developed by Gong and used by Daevid and the band to convey profound thoughts in a very silly and beautiful manner. Profoundly psychedelic, this is music intended to be listened to in an altered state, and it is designed to fit together with the following two parts of the trilogy ("Angel's Egg" and "You"...both equally essential). Buy all three albums - program them into a CD changer - prepare your head and don headphones - then get ready for a journey you will never regret. This IS "Lafta Yoga" - Electric Dharma. Hare hare London Bus!!!"

Alright, that does it. Gong is officially the most drugged out band I've ever heard from the 70's. I have NEVER heard a band who sounds like they are more high and crazy in the head than these guys. So the question is, can someone like me (who's never done drugs) understand and appreciate music like THIS?

Well I hope so, because these guys are probably my favorite of the progressive rock bands. You know what? FORGET about the fact they are a prog band. These guys are nothing like Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull or anyone else. This is not even anything like the space rock bands like Pink Floyd, Hawkwind or Rush.

This is just INSANELY musically creative... not rock music necessarily, more like atmospheric circus rock. There, I think that's the best way to describe this album (and the other three Gong albums I've heard, including the trilogy).

The great thing about Gong is that, it's not COMPLETELY atmosphere. In other words, every moment of their songs seem to build to something interesting and progress through different themes. You just need to prepare yourself for some of the most twisted, unpredictable and atmospheric music you've ever heard.

This may be the best of the albums from Gong, the band Daevid Allen formed after leaving Soft Machine.

Flying Teapot is, aptly, known as a space rock album, but this only half right: Teapot contains jazz, East Europian shadings, all kinds of music which the space thread runs through.

This is fantastic, polished, sophiticated music, made by one of the 1970s undergrounds best bands.

"Have a cup of tea, have another one, have a cup of tea ...." What a weird and yet wonderful album, first met in the 70s on vinyl, loved them then and to hear it all again in pristine condition (I remember so many clicks and pops on the LP)brings back so many fond memories of "the younger daze" :-) Aussie freak joins French and English friends recording original, hippy soundz - Angel's Egg is nearly as much fun ...

It's a perfect mystery... why the original version of this psych-rock classic doesn't exist on CD. Seek out the 1972 Virgin Records vinyl copy if you can; it is greatly superior to this version.

Gong is just a weird as I remember, discovered them in high school (was too many years ago) and they are still fun to listen to.

to my dissapointment, not everything by the original daevid allen era gong is indispensable. this is radio gnome invisible pt. 1 with the finest space rock lineup anyone could hope for but the final result of this album comes of sounding like a tentative rehearsal where in many places allen scats some of the songs' improvisations and their arrangement lacks coherence and development. instrumentation is limited to supporting the vocals and chants and rarely gets the opportunity to expound any ideas or feel each other out. in the end, daevid allen displays some infectious song writing ability but it appears that the new members just weren't ready to record yet. this is steve hillage's first appearance for gong but you wouldn't know it as his guitar is barely noticeable. things change remarkably for the next albums 'angels egg' and 'you' which are two of the greatest psychedelic albums ever recorded.

I admit, when I first heard this I thought it was absolutely dreadful. It just seemed like a sort of comedy album. But coming back to it a while later, I've grown to appreciate it a bit more, or at least some of the songs.

I still think the 2nd song is a terrible waste of album play time, just a horribly repetitive funk jam with inane lyrics about a "wee geezer" I think you'd have be really stoooooned to like this (Oh hang on, I think that explains it....) But a lot of the other songs I quite like now. Some of it is quite whimsical, yet actually quite catchy. As a parallel I might mention a few of Queen's more lighthearted songs. After the fury of a song Death On Two Legs they often came up with a few more whimsical songs like Seaside Rendezvous, which frankly you'll either love or hate. I feel the same about a lot of the "sillier" songs on this album now. But that's not to say that it's all a lighthearted bit of frippery. There are some more serious going ons here, and the final song is a wonderfully sleazy, sly jazz tune, with some lyrics that seem pretty outrageous for 1973.

So, overall I'd say this album has grown on me considerably, but I honestly can't give it 5 stars, as I view the second song a waste, and there are some annoyingingly empty moments here and there. I suppose Gong are an acquired taste, but I for one am glad I gave them another chance.